Gender Trainers have successfully completed "Let's grow together" curriculum training in all three states
January 2026
The ECOVI team has successfully completed the training of male and female gender trainers in all three target states. The trainings were led by Rucha Vasumati Satish, Abha Jeurkar, Pravin Thote, Prasanthi P, Pratyusha Varanasi, Anushree Dirangane, Ines Annika Böhret, and Shruti Shukla.
Training sessions covered detailed review of and practice of facilitating the gender training curriculum. The curriculum consists of six sessions and includes financial literacy skills training, communication skills, and reflections around gendered work and care burden and women's and men's expected roles in the community. The team introduced different kinds of scale-based and structured exercises so that gender trainers could reflect, participate actively, and build their analytical and facilitation skills. Apart from this, the training engaged the gender trainers through different types of activities aiming to challenge existing gender norms and to build understanding around economic violence. The team used documentaries and case discussions to strengthen sensitivity and knowledge on these issues. In addition, the master trainers delivered a powerful presentation on intersectionality, followed by interactive activities. Lastly, the training included an extensive module on mental health - both focused on gender trainers' own mental health and possible vicarious trauma as well as on monitoring and improving beneficiaries mental health. Overall, the training of trainers aimed at profoundly deepening gender trainers' understanding, critical thinking, and practical engagement with gender- and economic violence–related themes.
Pairs of male and female gender trainers are now implementing the ECOVI intervention across the 75 selected community clusters that form the treatment arm of our randomised controlled trial.
Training of gender trainers in Maharashtra
Picture Credit: Rucha Vasumati Satish
Training session
Picture Credit: Ines Annika Böhret
Ongoing implementation in Andhra Pradesh
Picture Credit: Gender trainer in Andhra Pradesh
Ongoing implementation in Rajesthan
Picture Credit: Gender trainer in Rajasthan
Prof. Dr. Janina Isabel Steinert and ECOVI team meet project partners in Jaipur, India
January 2026
Janina Isabel Steinert, Ines Annika Böhret, Anushree Dirangane, and Shruti Shukla attended a very productive team meeting in Jaipur, India, in December 2025. The meeting brought together the TUM team with Mansi Pawar, Jithin Jose and Vikas Choudhry from the Sambodhi Research and Communications Organisation and with and Rucha Vasumati Satish and Amartya Roy from VAYAM.
Key project milestones the ECOVI project has reached until now:
✅️ Co-created a culturally grounded, gender transformative couples-based programme to build family financial wellbeing, promote equitable gender norms, and reduce economic abuse
✅️ Interviewed 2,250 wives and husbands across three Indian states (Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh)
✅️ Trained teams of male and female gender trainers to deliver the programme, with implementation already ongoing in 2 out of 3 states
✅️ Trained a research team of process evaluators to help us understand intervention uptake, participants engagement, and possible implementation challenges
Meeting of the ECOVI-Team: project groups of TUM, Sambodhi Research and Communications, and VAYAM.
Picture Credit: Janina Isabel Steinert
What comes next:
➡️ We will deliver the six programme sessions in 75 out of 150 randomly selected communities
➡️ We will collect both qualitative and quantitative data at endline to assess the programme's impact on financial wellbeing, spousal abuse, gender norms, household decision-making, and general wellbeing
Training Manual"Let us Grow Together: Economic Wellbeing for Families" Published as Open Access Resource
December 2025
The team is thrilled to announce that the training manual for the couples-based programme "Let us Grow Together: Economic Wellbeing for Families" is now available as a CC BY 4.0 open access resource. Developed specifically for implementation in India, this curriculum supports couples in building stronger partnerships and improving household financial management.
Developed through a multi-phase process, the curriculum was informed by a desk review of existing programmes, refined through stakeholder workshops, piloted across the three target states to assess feasibility and acceptability, and finalised with culturally sensitive translations and locally designed visuals. The curriculum is authored by Rucha Vasumati Satish, Anushree Dirangane, Ines Annika Böhret, Shruti Shukla, and Janina Isabel Steinert.
Access the manual and all training materials here:
*available in Hindi, Marathi, and Telugu upon request
The programme consists of six interactive sessions for wives and husbands, each lasting 2–3 hours. Most sessions are conducted jointly with both partners, while sensitive activities are held separately. The curriculum covers financial literacy training, including budgeting, expense tracking, emergency savings, and setting family financial goals, alongside gender-transformative topics such as challenging traditional gender norms, promoting equal decision-making, conflict resolution, and addressing economic control and abuse. The programme is now being implemented in 75 communities across India.
We encourage educators, practitioners, and organisations to use, adapt, and share this resource to expand access to couples-focused financial and gender-transformative education.
Publication of global systematic review and meta-analysis on interventions addressing economic violence against women
November 2025
The team of the Professorship of Global Health and Vasanthi Subramonia Pillai from the Professorship of Behavioral Science for Disease Prevention and Health Care published the review and meta-analysis in the journal "Trauma, Violence, & Abuse".
Paper Abstract:
Economic violence against women includes control and exploitation of economic resources, employment sabotage, and partners’ refusal to contribute to household necessities. This form of intimate partner violence threatens women’s economic welfare, independence, and health. Despite its significance, evidence on effective prevention strategies remains limited. This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluate global experimental evidence on interventions addressing economic violence against women. We systematically searched MEDLINE and Web of Science, supplemented by hand searches, for randomized controlled trials measuring economic violence among partnered women. We identified 49 studies across 31 countries, with a total sample of 106,868 individuals and 397 effect size estimates. Interventions took place in low and middle-income countries and ranged from economic empowerment programs—such as cash transfers and business training—to health initiatives and gender-transformative approaches, with most employing multi-component designs (n = 34). Only 12 studies explicitly defined economic violence as an outcome, while most assessed individual subcomponents only, particularly economic control. Victimization was the primary measure (n = 48), and perpetration was rarely assessed (n = 6). Our meta-analysis found a significant reduction in economic violence (Hedges’ g −0.076, p < .01). Interventions targeting couples and those in South Asia showed the largest effects. While interventions show promise, future programs require greater awareness of economic violence in intervention design and should prioritize couple-based approaches. Future research needs to develop validated, culturally adapted measures to capture all forms of economic violence, address the lack of perpetration data, and expand studies to high-income countries to better understand the broader dynamics of economic violence.
You can read the open access-paper on the journal website.
Shruti Shukla at the European Commission Event: Advancing Gender Equality and Intersectionality Research
September 2025
On September 29-30, Shruti Shukla participated in the two-day Cluster Event on Research on Gender Equality and Intersectionality: Networking for Strengthened Societal and Policy Impact, held at the European Commission in Brussels.
The event convened 30 projects funded through various schemes, alongside national representatives, policy and project officers, and civil society organizations. This diverse gathering offered a wide range of perspectives to advance the gender equality and intersectionality agenda, with the collective aim of contributing insights crucial for shaping the future of EU policies.
As part of the programme, Shruti shared reflections from her research journey on the ECOVI project, presenting:
Her experiences and learnings as a researcher working on gender equality.
Recommendations on how EU and other international funding programmes could become more inclusive.
Insights into ethics and participant engagement drawn from the ECOVI project.
The ECOVI project (Disentangling and Preventing Economic Violence against Women in India) is an ERC-funded initiative that investigates and addresses the structural and societal mechanisms behind economic violence faced by women.
Picture Credit: Photo service of the European Parliament
Baseline Data Collection Successfully Completed in Three Study Sites
September 2025
The ECOVI project has successfully completed the baseline data collection in all three study states: Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan.
As part of this large-scale data collection effort, three teams of male and female enumerators conducted interviews with study participants in each of the three states. In Rajasthan, the data collection was overseen by field manager Hasan Mehdi, in Maharashtra by Kamta Nath and in Andhra Pradesh by Maheshwara G.B..
In total, 2,265 households were surveyed across 150 clusters. In each household, both, the wife and the husband were interviewed. All data were collected on mobile tablets and uploaded at the end of each day to a password-protected server. The dataset has since been cleaned and anonymized and is currently with the trial statistician - Siuli Mukhopadhyay, Professor in the Department of Mathematics at IIT Bombay for random allocation of the clusters to the treatment or control group of the CT.
Enumerators in Andhra Pradesh
Photo Credit : Maheshwara G.B.
ECOVI team presents intervention development at the European Conference on Domestic Violence in Barcelona
September 2025
At this year’s European Conference on Domestic Violence (ECDV) in Barcelona, Ines Annika Böhret, Anushree Dirangane, and Shruti Shukla held a presentation on “Designing a Couple-Based Intervention to Address Economic Violence: A Gender-Transformative Approach.”
In their presentation, they discussed the design of a culturally sensitive, couples-based intervention in India, aimed at fostering joint reflection, equitable financial decision-making, trust, and healthier partnerships. The development process followed three key stages:
(1) focus group discussions to understand the local context and specific forms of economic violence, complemented by a synthesis of global evidence on interventions, (2) drafting and refining the intervention curriculum through a review of existing programs and a participatory stakeholder workshop, and (3) piloting and adapting the curriculum based on feedback from participants and trainers.
Preliminary findings from stakeholder engagement and pilot testing suggest that a curriculum combining financial skills with a gender-transformative approach holds strong potential to prevent and address the root causes of economic violence. However, challenges remain, particularly in ensuring male engagement and addressing influences from the broader domestic sphere, such as parents-in-law.
This research contributes to the growing body of evidence on preventing violence against women and provides a framework for developing community-informed, evidence-based interventions.
The conference took place from 3. - 5. September 2025 in Barcelona. If you want to learn more about the conference and other presentations, please visit the website of the conference.
Training of Enumerators for Baseline Data Collection Successfully Completed
(August 2025)
The ECOVI project has successfully completed the training of the male and female enumerator teams in all three study states: Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan.
The training sessions were planned and overseen by Anushree Dirangane (PhD student at TUM), Rucha Vasumati Satish (Research Manager at Vayam), Ines Böhret (PhD student at TUM), and Shraddha Upadhyay (Research Manager at Sambodhi). We are also grateful for the substantial support and dedicated work by our master trainers Kris Chudawala and Aniket Watgule in Maharashtra, Karishma Shaik and G B Maheshwara in Andhra Pradesh, and Ashwani Kumar Tiwari and Akanksha Mishra in Rajasthan. Upon completion of the training, all enumerators conducted a day of pilot surveys with a consecutive debriefing day. The full-scale baseline data collection has now been launched in all three states, aiming for completion of 2250 household interviews with husbands and wives across 150 community clusters.
Enumerator team and trainers in Andhra Pradesh
Picture Credit: Rucha Vasumati Satish
Navigating the baseline survey on the project tablet
Picture Credit: Rucha Vasumati Satish
PhD student Anushree Dirangane delivering a training component in Maharashtra
Picture Credit: Rucha Vasumati Satish
Pilot of ECOVI Intervention Curriculum Successfully Completed Across All Three Study States
(June 2025)
The ECOVI project has successfully completed the pilot implementation of the intervention curriculum in all three study sites: Jaipur (Rajasthan), Vishakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), and Pune (Maharashtra), led and overseen by Rucha Vasumati Satish. The curriculum was piloted with couples across diverse caste, occupational, and socio-economic backgrounds to assess its suitability and resonance within each local context.
Women during a financial literacy-focused activity in the pilot intervention in Andhra Pradesh
Picture Credit: Rucha Vasumati Satish
Group of men discussing masculinity norms in the pilot intervention in Rajasthan
Picture Credit: Rucha Vasumati Satish
The pilot was facilitated by the following Gender trainers: Abha Jeurkar & Pravin Thote (Maharashtra), Nitesh Vyas & Rama Sharma (Rajasthan), and Satyaveni Salipalli & Devaprasad Ithi (Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh).
Across all sites, the programme was well received by participants. They expressed that the curriculum brought fresh and relevant content to their communities and was distinct from existing programmes they had encountered. The financial literacy modules were described as particularly useful and engaging. Participants reported improved understanding of key financial concepts, with many women gaining new insight into their household finances and husbands’ earnings. Activities fostered joint reflection on spending and saving practices and encouraged shared financial decision-making within couples.
The gender-transformative components also led to meaningful conversations around care work, communication, and gender norms. While some initial discomfort was observed—particularly among male participants during exercises that highlighted unequal household labour—facilitators effectively guided discussions to support critical reflection. Notably, exercises on active listening were described as impactful by both men and women, contributing to improved communication dynamics within households. Women, in particular, shared that their husbands rarely listened with such attentiveness. Specifically, they explained that through the active listening exercises, their husbands began including them more in financial discussions. This served as a moment of increased self-esteem – recognising their right and their capacity to participate meaningfully in decisions affecting their lives and families.
Overall, there were encouraging signs of potential programme impact, particularly evident during the final session, where participants reflected on their key learnings and experiences from the intervention. Notably, some male participants who had previously restricted their wives from working outside the home began to reconsider these limitations and expressed a willingness to change.
The feedback received from both participants and facilitators informed a range of possible curriculum refinements, aimed at improving its cultural appropriateness, literacy accessibility, and session flow.
These promising outcomes mark an important step toward the ECOVI project's broader implementation, scheduled to begin in randomly selected 50% of the 150 study clusters in November 2025.
Female participant filling out a worksheet on interest rates and loan schemes in the pilot intervention in Rajasthan
Picture Credit: Rucha Vasumati Satish
Husband and wife filling out a monthly expenses sheet together during the pilot intervention in Maharashtra
Picture Credit: Rucha Vasumati Satish
Participants and gender trainers after successful completion of the pilot intervention in Maharashtra
Picture Credit: Rucha Vasumati Satish
Facilitation Workshop in Preparation for the ECOVI Pilot
(April 2025)
Following the stakeholder workshop in Delhi, Anushree Dirangane, Ines Annika Böhret, and Rucha Vasumati Satish continued their work on the ECOVI project with an intensive online training. In collaboration with experienced trainers from Maharashtra and Rajasthan, a three-day exchange took place in preparation for the upcoming pilot phase.
Picture Credit: Rucha Vasumati Satish
Picture Credit: Ines Annika Böhret
During the training, the team and trainers reviewed each session of the ECOVI curriculum, which integrates financial literacy and gender transformation to prevent economic violence within households. The discussions focused on cultural and contextual factors that would shape the curriculum’s delivery. Trainers shared valuable insights on how local norms, relationship dynamics, and communication styles could influence participant engagement, offering suggestions for exercises and facilitation strategies to increase the curriculum’s relevance and impact.
The training also provided an opportunity to dive deeper into essential themes such as trauma-informed facilitation, inclusive financial education, and gender-transformative approaches. The extensive experience of the trainers reaffirmed the importance of collaboration and local expertise in ensuring the program’s acceptance in diverse contexts and its relevance for participants.
With the training now complete, the team is preparing to launch the pilot phase, a key step in bringing the ECOVI curriculum into real-world settings.
(January 2025)
Shruti Shukla, Anuschree Diranganee, Ines Annika Böhret, and Rucha Vasumati Satish recently travelled to Delhi, India, where they facilitated a stakeholder workshop for the ECOVI project in collaboration with our partner organization, Sambodhi. Over the course of three days, they brought together 10 experts in the fields of violence against women, economic empowerment, and gender transformation, as well as two couples from the local area, to discuss the planned intervention.
Picture Credit: Ines Annika Böhret
Picture Credit: Ines Annika Böhret
The workshop provided an invaluable platform for engaging with key stakeholders and receiving feedback on the couples-based curriculum we intend to test across three states in India in a randomized controlled trial. This curriculum is designed to prevent economic violence against women by fostering healthier financial and relational dynamics in households. It was carefully reviewed and refined with inputs from the experts and participants, ensuring it was both practical and impactful. We are deeply grateful for all the valuable contributions from our stakeholders, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration as we move forward with this important work.
In addition to the workshop, the team had the opportunity to connect with members of the Sambodhi team. Together, we reviewed the next steps for the project, including the pilot phase, baseline assessments, and intervention strategies. The team is now focused on revising the curriculum, with plans to begin the pilot in the coming months. This workshop marked a significant milestone in the ECOVI project, and we are excited to continue our work towards combating economic violence and promoting gender transformation.
Picture Credit: Ines Annika Böhret